Daz Studio 4.9 Daz Original Figure Skin Material Optimization

With the release of Daz Studio 4.9 Daz Original Genesis 3 based character skins from Figure release bundles are getting an Iray material upgrade!

One of the key improvements in the Daz Studio 4.9 release is a major update to the Iray render engine. This update alters and improves how Iray reads and renders skin. The update changes how Iray reads Sub-surface Scattering and translucency, allowing for an even more realistic result in any of your skin centric renders.

With this change, we will be updating our Daz Original character and figure skins that were released in figure release bundles to take advantage of this improvment. This means, over the course of the next few weeks, your Daz Original figures that were released as part of a figure release bundles will have both the original 4.8 materials and *NEW* 4.9 materials, that take advantage of the change.

We plan to release the first set of updates along with the 4.9 launch on Thursday January 21. On that day, you should see and update to Victoria 7 and Michael 7 with these new 4.9 materials. We will continue to add more figures and characters until we are caught up. We anticipate this taking 1-2 weeks.

Future Daz Original figures and characters (in or out of the release bundles) will release with both sets of materials for the time being, as people upgrade to the new Daz Studio 4.9.

With the release of Daz Studio 4.9 Daz Original Genesis 3 based character skins from Figure release bundles are getting an Iray material upgrade!

One of the key improvements in the Daz Studio 4.9 release is a major update to the Iray render engine. This update alters and improves how Iray reads and renders skin. The update changes how Iray reads Sub-surface Scattering and translucency, allowing for an even more realistic result in any of your skin centric renders.

With this change, we will be updating our Daz Original character and figure skins that were released in figure release bundles to take advantage of this improvment. This means, over the course of the next few weeks, your Daz Original figures that were released as part of a figure release bundles will have both the original 4.8 materials and *NEW* 4.9 materials, that take advantage of the change.

We plan to release the first set of updates along with the 4.9 launch on Thursday January 21. On that day, you should see and update to Victoria 7 and Michael 7 with these new 4.9 materials. We will continue to add more figures and characters until we are caught up. We anticipate this taking 1-2 weeks.

Future Daz Original figures and characters (in or out of the release bundles) will release with both sets of materials for the time being, as people upgrade to the new Daz Studio 4.9.

Thank you, sir, for the specificity of your language. I was wondering, 1) does "Daz Original Genesis 3 based character skins from Figure release bundles" mean that Daz Original Genesis 3 based character skins that are NOT from Figure release bundles do not have the new upgrade? Specifically, Lynsey for Genesis 3 Female(s) appears to have the most impressive dark skin that I can recall seeing. 2) Does SHE have the upgraded materials? Thanks

...so what about Genesis and G2 skins? Will they also eventually get an upgrade?

Technically you could just apply the material settings from the G3 figures? ctrl+click and select keep maps on the box that pops up. you'd probably have to remove the sss map the G3 figues come with after you apply it, assuming that would carry over.

I said in the release thread that I'm not upgrading from 4.8 and why. Not upgrading to a DS that contains encryption and DRM, whether it has to be used or not, ever. And i mean it. I asked in that post if DAZ could indicate what will still work in 4.8 in future: either mark things as OK with 4.8, or mark things that require 4.9 (or higher).

I come here a little while ago, and find that all DS Genesis 2, Genesis 3 etc content store pages have changed Compatible Software: to
DAZ Studio 4.9, and I've got updates appearing in DIM (V7 and Gia 7) with the ReadMe pages saying the updates are for DS 4.9.

As someone who will be staying with 4.8 - and pleaee don't start trying to talk me into upgrading to 4.9, it WILL NOT happen while content data file encryption is in the software, even if that means DS 4.8 is the last version of DS I ever use (for one thing, after this post I'm emailing a PA about the latest bugs I've found in two of his products bought recently from the store here, located, diagnosed and fixed by me with .dsf data files open in my Text Editor) - the apparent labelling of everything in the store now as 4.9 and 'for 4.9' updates in DIM makes me think I should have a last little blow out in the sale tonight on some older stuff you hopefully haven't 4.9-ed yet, then just stop buying anything from the DAZ store and stop downloading product updates that appear in DIM ... especially the latter unless I start backing up my old DIM download packages before trying updates that might overwrite the 4.8 stuff I need with 4.9 versions that won't work in my 4.8.

Does the post at the start of this thread mean that currently:

1) The ONLY things updated for 4.9 which would then be wrong for 4.8 are IRAY (and not 3Delight) material settings?

and

2) For now you will also be still including, and updates won't delete, 4.8 (or earlier if they currently have earlier) materials with ALL currently released products and new products?

If that is the case, then I can carry on making purchases in the store (provided the format isn't noted as DAZ Connect only, obviously) if there are satisfactory answers to two further questions:

3) Will DAZ undertake to make a very public announcement when either (i) they are going to stop always supplying the 4.8 materials, or (ii) some other factor apart from IRAY materials is introduced into new products that make them incompatible with 4.8?

and

4) Can we agree an offical and appropriate term to designate 4.8 compatible materials and specifiy them in product descriptions? 'Legacy materials' doesn't really cut it as that already has a current meaning, at least to me (.ds or .dsa materials). 'Legacy 4.8 IRAY materials' is clumsy but would be OK.

If products will continue to support 4.8, and/or it is clear WHICH products are OK in 4.8, then I can continue to be a customer. If not I'll stop daily visits to the store and just poke my head into the site every few months to see if you've abandoned data file encryption yet. I would have thought continuing to support 4.8 users who will not upgrade would be worth DAZ's while; but supporting such users means making it VERY CLEAR (and not by the user having to go ferreting in the forums) which products are OK in 4.8 and which need a higher version of DAZ those users are not going to upgrade to.

Please note: I am not saying you should make all products 4.8 compatible forever; I am saying you need to make it very clear WHICH products are 4.8 compatible. Currently I'm not clear. answering the first three questions above 'yes' (if that's the answer) will make it clear for now. Question 4 is to do with the future when any of those answers change to 'no'.

There was a post, a while back, that told us exactly what changes needed to be done to the 4.8 material settings to work properly in 4.9. It would be really nice if that information could be included with the OP. That way we can modify the existing Iray material settings for products not yet, (or ever,) updated to work in 4.9 Iray. (Even if it isn't the same for all figures, it would give us a starting point.)

There was a post, a while back, that told us exactly what changes needed to be done to the 4.8 material settings to work properly in 4.9. It would be really nice if that information could be included with the OP. That way we can modify the existing Iray material settings for products not yet, (or ever,) updated to work in 4.9 Iray. (Even if it isn't the same for all figures, it would give us a starting point.)

There was a post, a while back, that told us exactly what changes needed to be done to the 4.8 material settings to work properly in 4.9. It would be really nice if that information could be included with the OP. That way we can modify the existing Iray material settings for products not yet, (or ever,) updated to work in 4.9 Iray. (Even if it isn't the same for all figures, it would give us a starting point.)

I copied the text from the post, but can't remember where it was so can't credit the author.

Text is:

Fixes made to the implementation of Sub Surface Scattering (SSS) in the NVIDIA Iray renderer affect materials which have "Translucency Weight" active—not set to 0. This manifests in skin tones appearing more blue than they do in 4.8. A quick adjustment that can be made during the BETA phase is to adjust the "SSS Reflectance Tint" from a light blue to a light yellow—R: 1.00, G: 0.88, B: 0.67. Adjust this value to your liking.

After the BETA phase, Daz 3D products will be updated to include this change.

There was a post, a while back, that told us exactly what changes needed to be done to the 4.8 material settings to work properly in 4.9. It would be really nice if that information could be included with the OP. That way we can modify the existing Iray material settings for products not yet, (or ever,) updated to work in 4.9 Iray. (Even if it isn't the same for all figures, it would give us a starting point.)

I copied the text from the post, but can't remember where it was so can't credit the author.

Text is:

Fixes made to the implementation of Sub Surface Scattering (SSS) in the NVIDIA Iray renderer affect materials which have "Translucency Weight" active—not set to 0. This manifests in skin tones appearing more blue than they do in 4.8. A quick adjustment that can be made during the BETA phase is to adjust the "SSS Reflectance Tint" from a light blue to a light yellow—R: 1.00, G: 0.88, B: 0.67. Adjust this value to your liking.

After the BETA phase, Daz 3D products will be updated to include this change.

There was a post, a while back, that told us exactly what changes needed to be done to the 4.8 material settings to work properly in 4.9. It would be really nice if that information could be included with the OP. That way we can modify the existing Iray material settings for products not yet, (or ever,) updated to work in 4.9 Iray. (Even if it isn't the same for all figures, it would give us a starting point.)

I copied the text from the post, but can't remember where it was so can't credit the author.

Text is:

Fixes made to the implementation of Sub Surface Scattering (SSS) in the NVIDIA Iray renderer affect materials which have "Translucency Weight" active—not set to 0. This manifests in skin tones appearing more blue than they do in 4.8. A quick adjustment that can be made during the BETA phase is to adjust the "SSS Reflectance Tint" from a light blue to a light yellow—R: 1.00, G: 0.88, B: 0.67. Adjust this value to your liking.

After the BETA phase, Daz 3D products will be updated to include this change.

Nothing new, the 4.8 setting was wrong since the beginning of Iray in DS that why it rendered the way it did , Transmit is the color of the shadow level that will appear on the other side of the scattered model when using Scatter, it is the level of transmitted scattered light so blue make here no sense , but sometimes when the color textures are too red or orange it may help reducing it or better say correcting the hue

If using a Translucency MAP should that be gray scale? If so what is an example of how much detail and lightness should it contain. I'm still fiddling with my Bruna maps and basically took everything back to basics like Diffuse, Bump and Normal because all my attempts to get a higher quality looking skin from trying others skin settings gave me bad results. I've been at this for weeks on end and not really liking anything but once back to basics it looks OK. Back to basics means I have all the default settings set litteraly back to their default settings and colors.

This is what I got.... I've not done a close up render to see if it looks bad but for this distance shot it's a hell of allot better looking than any other attempt I've made so far.

IMHO, there is no "secret and only formula" for skin settings, When I used Maxwell Render came to use more maps than Daz does, dermis, sub dermis, epidermis, occlusion, all of each one...map, for just skin rendering material.

If the case, iRay is the most easily to make skin settings, aside the other big end softwares like Modo or Zbrush.

Remember, Skin material, or skin shader is only part of the equation...the other part is LIGHT.

you can't do marvels with one ingredient, if you have the saint grail of skin shaders and zero light...you have nothing.

in my experience, I've seen like +50 combinations of skin shaders in different softwares, and all claims being the best one and the only formula to succeed.

Eva 7 Fingernails SSS Reflectance Tint was not updated. It still uses the Legacy value. This leaves the fingernail ghostly white in DS 4.9 renders. I see that the fingernails SSS Reflectance Tint was updated for other DO characters like V7.

There is an inconsistency in the metadata Type assigned to the All Maps character settings. In Teen Josie 7, the All Maps and All Maps Iray Legacy are type "Materials". In Victoria 7, Eva 7, Bethany 7, and Olympia 7 the All Maps and All Maps Iray Legacy are type "Hierarchical Materials". Also, in some characters, the Translucency settings materials are "Materials" and in some they are "Hierarchical Materials". This is a problem because "Hierarchical Materials" do not show up in the Surfaces pane Presets tab. (At least I cannot find them in the Surfaces pane.)